


Getting It All Back

by tfm



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-21
Updated: 2009-04-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 17:46:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tfm/pseuds/tfm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 4x17 (Demonology). Emily runs into Viper in a bar. Some interesting things happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting It All Back

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Criminal Minds BadFic 2009.

Getting It All Back

Paul Thomas took a deep breath.

It had been months since he had done this. Since he had walked into a bar, bought a drink and turned on the charm. Of course, that was just semantics – for Viper, the man he used to be, the charm was always on.

Viper never went home without a girl. Viper never got nervous. Viper wouldn’t be having this kind of trouble.

_Viper_ would have gone right in, straightened the bling, and tipped the hat at a jaunty angle. He’d be doing the horizontal tango before midnight.

Paul Thomas would have no such luck.

It was cold, snowing out. He’d been living in D.C. for a little over month, having packed up shop after the incident in Georgia. How she had managed so easily to strip him of all self confidence astounded him. How she managed to do it whilst still retaining that sultry look astounded it even more.

He opened the door to the dingy bar, letting the cold air in. This wasn’t the high class, neon lights type of place he was used to. This was where people came to drink, not to hook up. This was the kind of place where he’d have no competition. Where maybe he’d be able to coerce some depressed girl into a quick fuck in a bathroom stall.

He wasn’t wearing his usual get up – no feather boas, or fluffy hats. This was no time to go jumping into the deep end. He needed to start slow, work his way back up to the top.

No-one looked up as he walked in. They were all too busy ruminating their own misery. He went straight to the bar, wondering if maybe he should have worn a coat. It wasn’t cold in the bar, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d be trudging home dejected in the bitter snow tonight.

He had the eyes of a hunter – picking the most viable target and rejecting the ones that just didn’t seem to work. The eyes hadn’t been used in several months, but knew without a doubt that the forty-something man with a beer gut wasn’t quite the type of pickup he was looking for tonight.

_There_. Right at the end of the bar. Dark – almost black – hair fell across the side of her face, blocking it from view. Her bag and coat sat in an untidy heap on the floor. She looked...lowly, upset. The kind of person this hunter was preying on tonight.

He ordered a quick shot of bourbon from the bartender – his liquid courage. It burned his throat on the way down. He almost dropped the class, choking. He was used to bright purple drinks with umbrellas in them. Novelty drinks. They added to the image.

The bartender gave a short laugh, his amusement only increasing as Paul walked cautiously towards the woman at the end of the bar. Paul tried to shrug it off.

He took another deep breath. This was it. This was the point of no return. The moment where he learnt whether or not he’d ever get his life back.

Were he not so nervous, he would have noticed the things that marked this woman as someone that he had met before.

‘So,’ he started. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

*             *             *

Emily Prentiss was feeling cold and empty inside. It wasn’t just the weather. It was the whole damn situation. It had wrecked her compartmentalization; there was no doubt about that. Professional and personal were _not_ supposed to come into contact with each other. Not like this.

So she was in a bar. Not the type of bar that she usually frequented, once in a blue moon. Not the type of bar where she could throw away everything that she was, just to be someone else. For just one night. Tonight, she wanted to drink until she couldn’t even remember her own name, and that wasn’t the best combination with the type of places she usually went to. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do in that place, either, but right she didn’t care.

She heard the footsteps coming towards her, but tried to ignore them. As she started down into her half-empty glass, the world was already starting to blur at the edges.

‘So,’ she heard, and for a moment, she couldn’t quite believe what was said, or rather, who was saying it. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

_What the..._

*             *             *

_...fuck?_

She looked up before he was even speaking, and, surprised as he was, he couldn’t even thing about shutting up, which was really what he wanted to do.

He stepped backwards, almost involuntarily. He didn’t want to deal with her right now. He was nowhere near ready enough to take on the Alpha female. All he wanted was some crying chick with daddy issues.

‘Well, look at who it is,’ she laughed. Her voice had none of the professionalism it did when he had first met her. If he were to guess, he’d say that she was at the very least, tipsy. The angry, bitter kind of tipsy. Not the flirty, fun kind that he usually dealt with. ‘_Viper_.’ It was a condescending tone, one that did nothing for his self-confidence.

‘I’ll go now,’ he said quickly. Before he could leave, though, she had grabbed him by the arm, was pulling him toward the stool beside her.

‘You’re staying right here, Viper,’ she said firmly. He flinched at the use of his former moniker. He had no right to call himself Viper anymore. She had torn that from him the night she humiliated him in front of his entire class.

She flagged the bartender down, indicating that he should fetch Viper a drink. The bartender looked at him in question. He wasn’t going to humiliate himself further by asking for an Orgasm or a Hairy Virgin.

‘Bourbon and coke,’ he said eventually, an answer which elicited a grin from Emily.

‘Just when I thought I knew you...’

He found it strange, almost. She was being much nice than she had been in Georgia. It might not have been evident in her words, but her tone had been one that let him know _exactly_ what she thought of him.

And it wasn’t just about like, or dislike. It was about pity. About being unworthy of respect.

‘I’m a man of many secrets,’ was the reply that he settled on. He tried so hard not to inject it with the smugness that had once defined him.

Emily snorted. She opened her mouth, as if to say something scathing in reply, but then rethought it. ‘Digging the new look,’ she said instead, taking note of his jeans and sneakers. Of the plain white t-shirt and the khaki jacket that covered it. ‘It makes you look like a new man,’ she continued. ‘Not some pissy fag.’ She paused, surprised at her own words.

‘I’m sorry for calling you a fag.’ The words were quiet. If they had been in any other bar, and place with loud, penetrating background noise, he wouldn’t have heard them. He wondered briefly if she was crossing into the “crying” phase of drunkenness.

She turned on her stool to face him properly. Hair out of her face, he could now see that she had, indeed been crying, but it wasn’t particularly recent. Faded mascara stained her cheeks; the stereotypical tell-tale sign. In the shadow, he had not seen it.

‘_Are _you a new man, Paul?’ she asked him. ‘New clothes, new look. But what about inside? Have you changed at all _inside_?’

Her words caught him by surprise. His intent was to make his way back up to the top. To prove to everyone that he was the Alpha male that he claimed to be. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that maybe his “life changes” had been a good thing. That maybe it _was_ time to start things afresh.

‘I’d like to think so,’ Paul said, and he had absolutely no idea why he’d said it. He didn’t owe Emily Prentiss anything. He didn’t care what she thought of him.

Did she?

‘You’re a terrible liar. You bite your lip – just slightly, but it’s enough.’

He furrowed his brow. Why did she feel the need to judge him? He’d never done anything to her. Not directly, anyway.

‘And what do you care if I’ve changed?’ he asked angrily. ‘What I had before worked, until someone decided to come along and _ruin_ it all.’

‘It was_ working?_’ she asked, incredulous. ‘You do realize what you did for a living? Treating women like objects to be won? Using them up and throwing them away? You call that working? My God, Paul. You’re pathetic. Why do you think none of them stayed after the first night?’

He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Unperturbed, she continued. ‘How many of them fucked you in a drunken blunder, and walked away shamefully the next morning. How many of them had to fake pleasure because you couldn’t even give them an orgasm? How many of them even paid attention to you just because you looked rich, but then walked away because you are completely. Fucking. Insufferable?’

He was stunned. No-one had ever spoken to him like that before. What was worse; he wasn’t entirely sure that she was wrong.

‘You want to show me that you’re a new man? A _real_ man? Then prove it.’

Using the bar for support, she pulled him towards her by the collar. Still stunned, he didn’t resist. He could smell the alcohol on her breath, though it didn’t completely overpower her own, personal scent.

Emily’s lips pressed against his, letting go every second, only to reaffirm their position. She stood, pulling him with her. They walked backwards awkwardly, him holding her up when she almost tripped, legless as she was.

‘Can you look after my bag?’ Emily asked the bartender. ‘I’ll be twenty minutes tops.’ Thinking, she adjusted her evaluation. ‘Ten, make that.’

He nodded, not even bothering to hide the smirk.

The patrons that were looking in that general direction gave sullen glances. That type of thing did not usually occur in this pub, and when it did, people were sometimes intrigued enough to stare up from their drinks.

The bathroom was silent. She let him push her backwards into a stall, and locked it behind them. It was his turn to be in control now.

‘How badly did you want to do this?’ she asked breathlessly. One hand snaked around her waist, up the back of her sweater. The other started to undo her belt.

‘So fucking much,’ he replied, and, looking down, she could see his cock straining against his pants. ‘Saw you as a...challenge.’ With that confession, he slid his hand into her panties, rubbing softly against her flesh.

‘Lower,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘Harder.’

Surprised, he manoeuvred his fingers until he found her clit, the whole area already wet with anticipation. He adjusted his position so that he could thrust his fingers inside of her. She jerked at the intrusion.

‘Is that all you’ve got?’ she asked. There was some anger in her voice, but he could tell that he had done something, at least. He pulled his fingers away, watching her expression drop as he did so.

‘Oh, I’ll show you what I’ve got,’ he said, and for a moment it was almost as though Viper was back. He slid her pants down with one hand, the other migrating to fondle her left breast.

‘You’re such a cliché,’ was her reply, eyes fluttering as his finger rubbed against her erect nipple.

‘You know you love it.’

There was a short turnaround between the moment he shed his own pants, and the moment he plunged his cock into her forcefully. She was unable to control the resulting moan. She needed this.

‘Harder,’ she uttered, hand gripping the side of the stall. ‘Faster.’ He sped up the pace of his thrusts to meet her desires. ‘Come on, Viper. Do you want to be a boy, or do you want to be a man?’

She almost screamed, then. He thought if he went any harder, they’d knock down the stall. That would be a fun conversation with management.

He was still going when she went limp around him. Eyes closed, she stood there languidly as he exploded inside of her. They hadn’t used a condom, and right now, she couldn’t bring herself to care.

He’d done this sort of thing before – the quickie in a public place. As such, he recovered quickly, doing up his belt before she’d even found the energy to open her eyes.

He waited patiently. It didn’t seem right to just walk off right away. He waited while she regained her composure and then redressed. Still, he wasn’t ready to leave. There was a burning question in his mind.

‘What was that supposed to teach me?’ he asked. She’d scolded him against treating women like objects, and less than ten minutes later, she had fucking begged for it.

‘Oh,’ she replied, her eyes twinkling. ‘No, that one was for me.’


End file.
